1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to computer backup techniques and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for supporting compound disposition for data images.
2. Description of the Background Art
Enterprise data indexing for subsequent fast searching for compliance and discovery purposes has become important. A primary source of enterprise data is a backup image. Backup is a process used to preserve business continuity by ensuring that important data is imaged and preserved on a regular basis. Moreover, archiving data for compliance, historical research and for legal purposes has grown into an important function. Disaster Recovery imposes another set of requirements for data redundancy, mandating that multiple copies of backup images be stored at sometimes multiple and geographically removed locations.
While societal requirements continue to change, storage technologies continue to evolve. For example, today, the cost of disk has fallen enough to be economically efficient as a temporary store for backup images before copying those images to various long-term storage destinations. However, traditional backup-to-tape processes lack the flexibility, choice, adaptability or accountability for the new storage devices and infrastructure.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for specifying and executing elaborate backup and archive image dispositions that are responsive to media characteristics, triggering events and other conditions that society places on data retention.